Auld Acquaintance
by dS-Tiff
Summary: It's New Year's Day and the team are celebrating, but Walter's thoughts have taken him to a much darker place. Fortunately he has a good friend who can talk him round and that's Happy Quinn.


**I started writing this on New Year's Day, but I've only just had time to finish it. It turned out a little more angsty than I first imagined, but I hope you enjoy it. All comments welcome, thank you kindly!**

 **Auld Acquaintance**

"O'Brien? Have you been out here since midnight?"

Walter briefly turned his head as Happy stepped out onto the rooftop.

"Oh... um... I guess so," he replied.

The sun was beginning to rise over the LA skyline, dancing across the windows of the skyscrapers and casting an orange glow over the rooftops.

"We all wondered where you'd got to," continued Happy, her face falling into a slight frown as she spoke. "You missed a good game."

"Ah," acknowledged Walter. "I assume you won?"

"Actually, no," admitted Happy. "Cabe, Paige and Allie won. Seems there's too many pop culture questions in Trivial Pursuit for a bunch of geniuses."

"I would've been no help to the team in that case," replied Walter with a shrug.

"The Doc's claiming they cheated," continued Happy, rolling her eyes.

A small smile crossed Walter's lips. "Toby has always been a sore loser," he said. Then his smile faded.

Happy walked over to join him, resting her elbows on top of the wall in an exact copy of his position. They stood in silence for a while, watching as the city slowly began to wake up. It was quieter than a usual LA morning, but most people were in no hurry to get moving after their New Year celebrations the night before.

Eventually Happy spoke. "So, this is what 2019 looks like," she said.

Walter nodded a silent response.

Suddenly Happy wished she hadn't been the one to locate Walter. After excusing himself from the game, his absence hadn't gone unnoticed and Paige had been worried about his mood, but Toby had suggested the best thing they could do was to leave him to his thoughts. Then Trivial Pursuit had distracted them all and over two hours had passed.

Now Toby and Cabe were still arguing about the result of the game and Allie and Paige were clearing away the messy remains of their party. Sylvester and Ralph were both dozing on the couch, leaving Happy to offer to drag Walter back inside.

"2018 kinda sucked at times, didn't it," continued Happy with a wry smile.

Walter nodded again.

Happy closed her eyes and desperately tried to think of something else to say. Ever since Walter and Paige – and more importantly, perhaps, Team Scorpion - had reunited after their short-term split, Walter seemed different to her, but in a good way. In fact everyone did to some extent. Paige was working through all her issues with Toby's help and she and Walter were learning to be more open with each other. They understood each other better than they'd ever done before and that reflected in all aspects of their lives. The whole team was calmer somehow, with everyone more willing to listen to each other and their success in some really difficult cases recently had shown them all what a difference it made.

Lately Walter had seemed less troubled by his own demons than he used to be, but right now, as the shadows on the wall grew shorter, Happy could see echoes of his former self and it actually frightened her. The last thing they needed as the New Year dawned was for Walter to shut himself down.

"So, um, you wanna talk about it?" offered Happy after a long pause.

"About what?"

"About whatever it is you're thinking about," replied Happy. "I figure I can guess what it is," she added.

Walter turned to look at her. "I'm sorry," he said. "I don't mean to be... I don't, um..."

"Hey," Happy put a supportive hand on his shoulder as she spoke. "I get it. We all screwed up last year, but it's over now. We made it through so we can put it all behind us, right?"

"Right."

Happy sighed. His single word response carried no truth. They'd all talked through everything so much in the last few months that she'd assumed he had made peace with what had happened, but maybe he hadn't?

"Come back inside?" she suggested.

"In a minute," he answered, lacing his fingers together in front of him.

"No!" Happy snapped back at him. "You don't get to do this, Walt. We're done with beating ourselves up over it. Things are good now, we're all good now. The only thing that's changed from yesterday is the date and that's never bothered you before, so don't you dare go piling a load more crap onto yourself now, OK?"

Walter swallowed hard and dropped his head down towards his chest. He knew Happy was right about one thing, the start of a new year _was_ irrelevant - nothing really changed between the last minute of December 31st and the first minute of January 1st - but this year he felt overwhelmed by... well, by _feelings_ and he didn't know how to process any of them. He knew how close he'd come to being alone this January 1st and that possibility wasn't an easy one to acknowledge, but he and Paige – and the team - had spent the last few months working through all their issues and things _were_ good now. Happy was right about that too.

Deep down he knew the real reason he had spent the first few hours of 2019 alone on the roof of the garage and it wasn't really to do with the break-up. Not _really._

He lifted his head. "I miss her," he said, quietly. "I miss Megan."

Happy was a little taken aback. Of course he missed his sister, but she'd been gone for over two years now and Happy was confused as to why, considering what Walter had been through over the last year, his grief would have triggered such a melancholy start to _this_ year.

"I know," she answered, not really knowing what else to say.

"If she... if she'd still been here, still been alive," continued Walter, choking back tears. "Maybe... maybe none of it would've happened?"

Happy was confused by his words. "So you're blaming Megan for everything now?"

"No! Of course not! I don't mean... I just mean... I suppose I mean..." But it was no good, Walter couldn't articulate his thoughts. He let out a long sigh.

"You mean you would've listened to her," said Happy, slowly beginning to understand. "You mean Megan would never have let things go so badly wrong because she'd have kicked your ass about lying to Paige."

Walter nodded. "Yes," he admitted. "I know I should've listened to you and Toby – you tried to warn me, but..." he trailed off. They'd raked over all of this so many times already there seemed little point in discussing it again.

"And she would've made Paige see how badly she was overreacting before it all got outta hand," continued Happy.

Walter nodded again. "And Sly wouldn't have..." he began.

"Gotten himself all confused about the chemist," Happy finished his sentence for him. Of course Sylvester would never have even considered developing feelings for another woman if Megan had still been alive, she realised, let alone had the opportunity to mix-up caring about a friend with romantic thoughts.

Paige and Walter had needed to fix their relationship - they all understood that now, although they would all have preferred it if they'd found a less dramatic way to fix it – but Sylvester hadn't deserved to get hurt in the crossfire and if Happy could've changed one thing about the whole mess it would've been that.

"Megan was so good for Sly," said Walter as if he could read Happy's thoughts. "She was a special person and she was my sister and... and it's all so unfair and... and I don't know... I thought grief was supposed to get easier with time?"

"I don't really know," admitted Happy. "Sounds like you should be talking to my husband about that."

Walter nodded solemnly. "I will," he agreed.

"Um, so sometimes I..." began Happy, but she trailed off to gather her thoughts before continuing. "If it helps at all, sometimes I think about my mom," she continued eventually. "And I'm not saying it's the same thing because I never knew her, but... but I still miss her. I miss what might have been, what we could've had. Does that make sense?"

"It does," replied Walter.

"And Toby says it's OK to... to get kinda reflective sometimes," Happy continued. "He says it's normal to have those thoughts and it helps to compartmentalise your feelings which is a good thing, apparently."

"I suppose it is."

"But Toby also said you can't dwell on what might have been," Happy went on. "He says that just leads to all kinds of trouble. The kind that really screws with your head."

"I imagine it does."

Happy suddenly grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him round to face her. "Listen to me, O'Brien," she urged. "I'm gonna hit you with a cliché right now, but it's all I have. Megan wouldn't want you to be moping around like this today, or any day, because of her. She'd want you to be with your family having a good time."

Walter nodded and his mouth twitched into a small smile. "She would berate me for this behaviour," he agreed.

"Sure would," agreed Happy and she released him from her grasp. "Thing is, you and me, we don't always know how to deal with the way we feel, but one thing I do know is that when I feel like crap trying to deal with alone is not good. Standing out here on your own is the dumbest thing you can do right now when you have a whole family downstairs and we're all here for you, Walt. We're all here for each other, because that's what families do. I figure a chat with Sly would be a good place to start, don't you?"

"Of course," agreed Walter, suddenly angry with himself that he hadn't thought of it too. "Sylvester must be missing her today too."

"He misses her every day, just like you do, dummy," noted Happy, raising her eyebrows to emphasise her point. "So get your ass inside and talk to him, then when you're done you can go tell Paige how you're feeling because even if she doesn't have any answers for you she can hold you and sometimes that's all it takes."

Happy stood with her hands on her hips and waited for his reply.

"I... I..." stammered Walter. "I'm being a moron again, aren't I. I should apologise to Paige... to everyone... for being so distant tonight."

Happy laughed. "Geez, boss, you really have changed haven't you!"

Walter laughed too. "For the better, so I'm told," he noted. "We have so much to be thankful for, so much to celebrate together," he added.

"They'll get it, they'll understand," insisted Happy. "We've all been through hell, we've all been morons this year - I mean, last year – but we got through it and Megan would be proud of the way you picked yourself up and learnt from it all."

"I hope she would be proud of me," replied Walter.

"She was pretty smart for a normal," grinned Happy. "I think she'd be proud of everything you achieved last year. You fixed your relationship with Paige and you fixed us, the team. Not to mention we saved a whole bunch of people, we stopped a whole bunch of disasters. You did good, O'Brien."

Then without warning she flung her arms around him.

Walter was a little more comfortable with physical displays of emotion than he used to be and as Happy was the least likely out of the whole team to let down her walls like this her hug meant even more to him. He gently patted her back as he held her, hoping she would understand that he couldn't put into words how much she meant to him.

"Get your hands off my wife!"

Happy and Walter broke apart at the sound of Toby's voice. They turned to see his grinning face as he approached them, closely followed by Paige.

"We were married once," Happy reminded her husband with a wicked twinkle in her eye.

"OK, I'll let you off this time," agreed Toby with a wink and he pressed a kiss to the side of her temple as he wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

Paige slid both her arms around Walter's waist and smiled up at him. "Ralph's out for the count," she said, then she glanced at Happy. "So, everything OK?" she asked. "We kinda figured you needed some space."

"Everything is more than OK," replied Walter with a warm smile. "And yes, I just needed to be alone for a while, I'm sorry I was out here for so long."

"No need to apologise, One Ninety Seven," Toby assured him. "And if I'm right – which I always am, of course – I'd say a little talk with my beautiful wife has done you the world of good."

"It has indeed," agreed Walter, nodding appreciatively towards Happy. "And later, when we've all had some sleep, I intend to spend some time with Sylvester."

Toby squeezed Happy's shoulder proudly. "I think the Sly Dog would like that very much," he said. "He thinks about Megan all the time, y'know," he added.

Walter knew he should be used to it by now, but it still freaked him out just a little every time Toby seemed to know exactly what he was thinking. He nodded a simple acknowledgement.

"Come on, Doc, we have a meeting with the adoption agency this afternoon," said Happy. "We're not gonna impress them if we're sleep deprived."

"That's true, Lovebug," agreed Toby. Then he grinned at Walter and Paige. "We're outta here. Happy New Year to the runners up in the Best Looking Couple in Scorpion contest," he said, patting Walter on the shoulder before leaning in to kiss Paige on the cheek. His words were typically mischievous, but his actions were sincere.

"Happy New Year," replied Walter and after Paige and Happy had exchanged hugs and kisses, Happy and Toby left leaving Walter to pull Paige into his arms.

Paige murmured contentedly against his chest. "I can't believe we stayed up almost all night for New Years," she said. "I guess we all really wanted to celebrate the end of 2018. I have a feeling 2019 is going to be much better."

"I sincerely hope so," replied Walter with a wry smile.

"Last year wasn't all bad," Paige pointed out. "We should try to remember a lot of good things happened too."

"Happy said much the same thing," acknowledged Walter.

"Happy talks a lot of sense."

Walter smiled. "Yes," he agreed. "Yes she does."

 **THE END.**

 **A/N - For those of you waiting for another chapter of _Sunshine and Sea Air_ , I'm sorry for getting distracted by seasonal fics. Please just give me a few more days! **


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